However, it still will not desexualize it. It will just make touch acceptable between men, but it will not remove the notion of it being sexual you see men are frightened of even looking at a woman, never mind touching her. They are scarcely going to be keen on touching men if they think it will also be seen as sexual. The thing is most males are extremely conscious of what signals they send out to people, and that they might misconstrue them. Some people love physical contact, but they rarely hug people unless they know them and am a little reticent – partly cos people value personal space is a little introverted, so people often rarely get into someone else comfort zone. The acceptability of close physical affection between men in most of these contexts rests upon the taboo against homosexuality. Such taboos make it possible to have certain sorts of close relationships without them being …show more content…
Problems arise when same-sex sexual relations suddenly become widely ‘thinkable’ and are perceived to be widespread. When this occurs, men start to keep their distance from each other, lest their actions are misinterpreted. And this is quite understandable: I don’t think that most of us want platonic gestures to be mistaken for sexually charged ones. Overturning homophobia won’t change anything. The cultures that are most open to such platonic touch are almost invariably those in which same-sex sexual relations are the least thinkable. One of the most common reactions to this—that it is closet homosexuality and they should get over it—just illustrates how sexualized our understanding of touch has become as a result of the widespread practice and growing tolerance of same-sex sexual